person:viktor yanukovich

Ukraine political squabbles delay formation of new government | GlobalPost
▻http://www.globalpost.com/article/6758703/2016/04/12/ukraine-finance-minister-yaresko-will-not-stay-new-government-mps

Squabbling over top jobs in Ukraine’s government delayed a parliament vote on a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday that is likely to see the departure of Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko and tighten President Petro Poroshenko’s grip on key policy areas.

Legislators are in the final stages of agreeing a new coalition following the resignation of Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk in the biggest shake-up in Ukraine since the 2014 Maidan uprising brought in a pro-Western leadership.

Deadlock has stalled billions of dollars in foreign loans and the delay in forming a government will frustrate Kiev’s allies, including the United States, who warn that political infighting can threaten efforts of recovery for the war-hit economy.

A close ally of Poroshenko, Volodymyr Groysman, is up for nomination to replace Yatseniuk who has headed governments since the “Maidan” street uprising which forced the Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich to flee.

But Oleksiy Goncharenko, a deputy in Poroshenko’s BPP faction, told journalists there was still no agreement on who would fill the ministerial posts of economy, energy, culture and health. The vote on the coalition and government would “hopefully” take place on Wednesday or Thursday, he said.

But MPs said the new cabinet would not include Yaresko and some other foreign-born technocrats brought in late in 2014 in the hope that their outsider status and international experience would help Ukraine root out corruption.

Iryna Fedets : Oligarchs rule Ukraine’s heavily biased media
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/iryna-fedets-oligarchs-rule-ukraines-heavily-biased-media-401946.html

Oct. 19 turned out to be the last day of work for Roman Sukhan, who for years had worked as a TV anchor for Channel 5, one of Ukraine’s top news stations. “I’m fired. For what? I have no idea,” Sukhan wrote on Facebook on the same day, making his frustration with his former employers public. Not stopping there, he used the opportunity to accuse the channel of several unsavory practices.

According to Sukhan, while working at the station — which is owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko — he received under-the-table money transfers to his private bank card every month in addition to his regular salary. Unofficial salaries are widely used in Ukraine to evade taxation. It’s no wonder the country’s shadow economy is almost half the size of the official gross domestic product, according to government estimates.

More damning for Ukraine’s media industry — and perhaps, the future of its democracy — is Sukhan’s other accusation: that every show on Channel 5, except for the straight news programs, airs content for money. He did not provide specific examples, but described the practice using the slang word “#jeans,” which in Ukraine denotes one-sided stories that promote particular people, business interests, or political parties — who have paid for the privilege. Ukrainian journalists and media experts have learned to recognize jeans by a common set of features: they cover trivial events, such as ribbon cuttings; they fail to present opposing points of view; and they often feature quotes from dubious “experts” with little relevant experience.
[…]
It’s no wonder that Poroshenko did not sell Channel 5 after being elected president in 2014, all while promising that his channel would be independent. The channel is hardly a moneymaking asset, but in this it is not alone. According to some commentators, even some of the country’s top TV stations are subsidized by their owners. But the advantage of having a personal media outlet isn’t profit — it’s gaining leverage in the power struggle among big business players, all of which, in a country as corrupt as Ukraine, have ambitious political agendas. And in this regard, Poroshenko (who is worth over $900 million) has serious competition.

In fact, all 10 of the country’s most popular channels are owned by powerful oligarchs.
Of these top 10 channels, three are controlled by Viktor Pinchuk, three by Ihor Kolomoisky, three by Dmytro Firtash and one by Rinat Akhmetov. All four of these men, who are among Ukraine’s richest and most powerful, use their media might to advance their business and political interests. As Ukrainian media monitors have shown, most of the country’s top TV channels air political advertising promoted as “news.”

Chaînes possédées par les gros intérêts économiques, pseudo-débats sans vraie contradiction, pseudo-experts,… ouf, il s’agit des télés ukrainiennes.

Ce sont des méchants #oligarques, il n’y a pas ça chez nous.

Festival of Ethical Photography » Sandro Maddalena – The Road Of Revolution

http://festivaldellafotografiaetica.it/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Maddalena_LR003.jpg

The clashes in Maidan square, blown in the Capital of the most important and strategic among the former Soviet Republics, started off the Ukrainian Revolution in February. It began as a peaceful protest against the pro-Russian Government of the president Viktor #Yanukovich in November 2013, but after his refusal to sign deals of association to the European Union, the protest evolved in the following months in a true #insurrection, when the streets of #Kiev became the epicenter of a civil war.
▻http://festivaldellafotografiaetica.it/sandro-maddalena-the-road-of-revolution-eng

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Between Ukraine and Russia, Kazakhstan’s Chocolate Might Come Out a Winner · Global Voices
▻http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/06/16/kazakh-chocolate-patriots-hope-ukraines-loss-is-their-gain

When the struggle between Russia and the West over Ukraine was just warming up last summer, Russia unceremoniously elbowed Ukrainian chocolate-maker Roshen out of its domestic market. At the time, the move was widely interpreted as a punishment for Kiev’s pledge to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, rather than join Moscow’s alternative – the Customs Union.

The ban on Roshen imports was subsequently lifted in November after then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich gave in to Russian pressure and fatefully U-turned on the EU agreement. There was more bad news for Roshen in March this year – the Kremlin shut down the company’s Russian factory over a month after the Maidan protest movement toppled Yanukovich and just days after Crimea voted to join Russia and secede from Ukraine in a controversial referendum.

With Roshen’s owner Petr Poroshenko recently becoming president of Ukraine and reiterating his endorsement of the pro-EU stance of the Maidan movement, Roshen’s foothold in the giant Russian market now appears to be a thing of the past.

But what has all that got to do with Kazakhstan?

As with Roshen [ru] before the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, over 50 percent of Rakhat’s exports go [ru] to the giant Russian market. “Every year, Rakhat’s chocolate becomes more in demand in Russia,” concluded [ru] Nadezhda Belimenko, the company’s marketing director last year. Following Roshen’s very public divorce with Russia, Kazakhstan’s chocolate patriots are hopeful that share will continue grow.

#chocolat

Ukraine’s Increasing Polarization and the Western Challenge | Stratfor
▻http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/ukraines-increasing-polarization-and-western-challenge
▻http://www.stratfor.com/sites/default/files/styles/640_scale_width/public/main/images/geopolitical-weekly.png?itok=e3Jio6iv

Just days before the Ukrainian crisis broke out, I took an overnight train to Kiev from Sevastopol in Crimea. Three mechanics in their 30s on their way to jobs in Estonia shared my compartment. All ethnic Russians born and raised in Sevastopol, they have made the trip to the Baltic states for the past eight years for seasonal work at Baltic Sea shipyards. Our ride together, accompanied by obligatory rounds of vodka, presented the opportunity for an in-depth discussion of Ukraine’s political crisis. The ensuing conversation was perhaps more enlightening than talks of similar length with Ukrainian political, economic or security officials.

My fellow passengers viewed the events at Independence Square in an overwhelmingly negative light. They considered the protesters camped out in Kiev’s central square terrorists, completely organized and financed by the United States and the European Union. They did not see the protesters as their fellow countrymen, and they supported then-President Viktor Yanukovich’s use of the Berkut security forces to crack down on them. In fact, they were shocked by the Berkut’s restraint, saying if it had been up to them, the protests would have been “cleaned up” from the outset. They added that while they usually looked forward to stopping over in Kiev during the long journey to the Baltics, this time they were ashamed of what was happening there and didn’t even want to set foot in the city. They also predicted that the situation in Ukraine would worsen before it improved.

A few days later, the protests in Independence Square in fact reached a crescendo of violence. The Berkut closed in on the demonstrators, and subsequent clashes between protesters and security forces throughout the week left dozens dead and hundreds injured. This spawned a sequence of events that led to the overthrow of Yanukovich, the formation of a new Ukrainian government not recognized by Moscow and the subsequent Russian military intervention in Crimea. While the speed of these events astonished many foreign (especially Western) observers, to the men I met on the train, it was all but expected.

After all, the crisis didn’t emerge from a vacuum. Ukraine was a polarized country well before the EuroMaidan movement took shape. I have always been struck by how traveling to different parts of Ukraine feels like visiting different countries. Every country has its regional differences, to be sure. But Ukraine stands apart in this regard.
Ukraine’s East-West Divide

Traveling in Lviv in the west, for example, is a starkly different experience than traveling in Donetsk in the east. The language spoken is different, with Ukrainian used in Lviv and Russian in Donetsk. The architecture is different, too, with classical European architecture lining narrow cobblestoned streets in Lviv and Soviet apartment blocs alongside sprawling boulevards predominating in Donetsk. Each region has different heroes: A large bust of Lenin surveys the main square in Donetsk, while Stepan Bandera, a World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist revolutionary, is honored in Lviv. Citizens of Lviv commonly view people from Donetsk as pro-Russian rubes while people in Donetsk constantly speak of nationalists/fascists in Lviv.......

#Ukraine
#Russie
#UE
#États-Unis

Juste et claire vision de MK Bhadrakumar
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article-juste_et_claire_vision_de_mk_bhadrakumar_01_03_2014.html

@TITREBREVE = Juste et claire vision de MK Bhadrakumar MK Bhadrakumar, l’ancien ambassadeur de l’Inde (à Ankara, à Moscou, etc.) devenu commentateur a depuis longtemps constitué une de nos références très utiles pour enrichir notre appréciation des perceptions qui importent pour déterminer le sentiment général vis-à-vis des situations en cours. Il nous arrive parois, tout en respectant la valeur du jugement, de différer de ce jugement de MK Bhadrakumar qui nous semble trop tenir compte des